Summer School Reviews
Summer School 2000
A review by Phil Baker, student. (from BKA Spring 2001 Newsletter)
MONDAY: There are some advantages to starting your days with a car journey.
For instance, listening to the radio can bring little revelations. It
appears that there are some historians who have researched the sound world
of Shakespeare’s England. Contrasted with the contemporary sound world,
Shakespeare’s was full of human and natural sounds like chatter, people
making hand made things which made hand-made noises; there would be the
sound of animals, the sound of river traffic all jumbled up with the sound
of singing and playing of instruments. So what do we have? Digital noise:
mobile phones bleeping Fur Elise, sirens wailing, piped music, car engines,
computers that make irritating whirring noises, electronic keyboards which
make synthetic sounds with names like ‘crystal’ and ‘jazz piano’; the
repetitive bleeping of the cash register in the supermarket and digital
Vivaldi to keep us waiting on the end of a phone! Always Vivaldi!! So, - and
here’s the point – it was with such thoughts in mind that I was happy to see
how frightened the two and four year olds I was with the other day when they
heard (probably for the first time) the sound made by a tree creaking in the
wind as we walked in the forest.
TUESDAY: I’ve suddenly remembered a student teacher I knew a long time
ago: he was quite interested in the Kodály work which he observed in my
classroom but was always insistent that ‘the method might have a problem
with jazz’. I was never quite sure what he meant but, as it happens, work
with pentatonic scales (for instance) can readily be taught within a jazz
context. The basic twelve-bar blues chain can be sung as simply as: d-m-s-m
x4bars; f-l-d-l x2 bars; d-m-s-m x2 bars; s-t-r-t x 1 bar; f-l-d-l x 1bar;
d-m-s-m x2bars.This chain, of course, uses the primary triads which can then
be expanded into their sevenths: d-m-s-taw; f-l-d-maw; s-t-r-f (V7).The
‘blue notes’ e.g. C: E-flat sung as ‘maw’ F-sharp as fi; B-flat as ‘taw’
would give a so-called blues-scale: d-(r)-maw-f-fi-s-taw. Rhythms should be
also worked on so as to introduce syncopations and dotted-quaver semiquaver
patterns to create a boogie feel. With the boogie pattern the added sixth
chords come into their own: e.g. C: d-m-s-l; f-l-d-r; and s-t-r-m; in boogie
rhythm. In fact, it’s amazing how much rhythmic, harmonic and scale work can
be covered with the simple twelve-bar.*
Wednesday: Tonight sees the fifth meeting of my adult education class. I am
quite surprised that we’ve only had four sessions because, having reviewed
our progress, we have in fact learned a large number of songs which include
rounds and part-songs. Everyone is making brilliant progress and much faster
than I had imagined so that I have to keep changing my targets and
expectations.
THURSDAY: Heard a Christmas concert tonight given by an enormous choir of
primary school children. Most of the items were sung in mass unison but
there was one item which was sung in parts and it was that which was the
most effective, was sung with the most volume and showed the best
intonation. So, it seems that children sing their best when given
challenging material – even slightly challenging as in this case – which
allows them to shine. We do them no favours by always ‘keeping things
simple’ and singing only in unison.
Friday: Scene: children’s birthday party; time comes to sing Happy Birthday;
children start up very nicely but then – argh!, the clown-*****-magician
hired by the mum deliberately sabotages perfectly decent singing by singing
out of tune in a silly way! - Poor modelling…
*N.B. If there’s anyone out there looking for jazz material for the
Kodály context, I am happy to supply it for voices as well as instruments.
lindsay-phil@talk21.com
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